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Raytheon launches Stinger missile from Javelin launcher

This also got me to thinking...could you also develop a cheap, Carl G type round that could use the same launch unit. A single launcher that can fill multiple roles.
 
This also got me to thinking...could you also develop a cheap, Carl G type round that could use the same launch unit. A single launcher that can fill multiple roles.
It's not so much the weapon system but the target acquisition/command and control system that makes it effective.

a) do you really want to be humping around anti air rounds in the event that you may need it?; or

b) do you want to let the platoon let fly against whatever aircraft crosses their front?

Air defence is substantially more efficient if coordinated weapon systems that form part of a specialized, integrated network are deployed throughout the region to provide total coverage.

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Currently we have zero air defense, unless you count power points documents. Even 1 partial effective layer is 100% better than what we have now. Start with Manpads, buy a lot of trainers, get them out to the troops and stand up reserve AD troops as well, get them out in the field to practice the craft and force commanders to operate under the restrictions of a partial AD cover. It will drive home the need for more systems.
The other options is to do the classic wait till people die or land into a theatre where it is badly needed and have people learn those skills on the two way range against people who want to kill them and really hope the other side miss.
 
Currently we have neither, at least with manpads, our opponents might exercise a modicum of caution, otherwise we are just the turkeys in a turkey shoot.
 
Currently we have zero air defense, unless you count power points documents. Even 1 partial effective layer is 100% better than what we have now. Start with Manpads, buy a lot of trainers, get them out to the troops and stand up reserve AD troops as well, get them out in the field to practice the craft and force commanders to operate under the restrictions of a partial AD cover. It will drive home the need for more systems.
The other options is to do the classic wait till people die or land into a theatre where it is badly needed and have people learn those skills on the two way range against people who want to kill them and really hope the other side miss.
I have no problem with manpads as long as they are part of an integrated air defence system the way that Javelins were a few decades ago. By all means let's start with air defence batteries in hybrid reg/res air defence batteries and layer them into the bigger systems if and when we get them.

My preference though, rather than pure manpads, is an inexpensive low level systems like the Avenger which deliver both a gun and missile solution so can provide an inexpensive anti UAV response. Avenger is old and proven and while not top of the line technology is available, is still being fielded in the US, and would easily work as a training aid for units until a better system can be fielded.

I tend to go with hybrid batteries for the following reasons:

a) air defence command and control is complex and needs the experience and training of full-timers (just as right now air space control centres are reg f components of 4th Regt RCA (GS) - (which previously as 4th AD Regt contained both ASCCs and AD batteries - and provided expertise with a healthy reg f component within res f AD regts and batteries);

b) if air defence C&C cells are reg f then they can support reg f exercises even without (or with minimal) reserve f shooter participation to provide the air defence input into those exercises;

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Arguably, airspace coordination and control is even more important, but it is poorly understood amongst the Army leadership.
It would appear that the ASCC capability is being modernized, perhaps that is a good sign?

Everyone always wants to talk missiles and guns, few seem interested in talking sensors, C2, or defensive ECM...
 
It would appear that the ASCC capability is being modernized, perhaps that is a good sign?

Everyone always wants to talk missiles and guns, few seem interested in talking sensors, C2, or defensive ECM...
No, everything you mention is important. I think soft kill options have to be examined along with hard kill options. It is a much more complex problem than it was during the cold war.
 
There was total force unit, called 1AD, ( I am sure there were others but this unit I was apart of for a short while). They had a huge budget to pay reserve force troops, they were on many exercises with the Reg Force at Petawawa and other places. Big issue was the training area was almost to small to train on for range safety. Personnel were always busy but equipment costs were high and demand was high for training. Now they converted to mud gunners, cheaper toys and tools, and loss of assets , skills and hard to replace when everyone is now doing something else or left the army. Starting back at page 1 of the training manual.
 
No, everything you mention is important. I think soft kill options have to be examined along with hard kill options. It is a much more complex problem than it was during the cold war.
Yes, and I assume most of the CA corporate knowledge as it relates to AD has since moved on to industry or well-deserved retirements. Perhaps time to call in some RCN/RCAF advisors...

And it would also be nice if some capabilities could be lean enough to deploy with light forces & SOF... you know, in case anyone fires rockets et al. at their camp?
 
There was total force unit, called 1AD, ( I am sure there were others but this unit I was apart of for a short while).
1 AD Regt in Pembroke (now 42 Fd Regt) supported Central Region while 18 AD Regt (redesignated 20 Ind Fd Bty) in Lethbridge supported the west and 58 AD Bty in Val Bel-Air (part of 6 Fd Regt RCA and now returned as a Fd bty) supported Quebec were all total force units while 4 AD Regt in the Maritimes was fully reg f.

Yes, and I assume most of the CA corporate knowledge as it relates to AD has since moved on to industry or well-deserved retirements. Perhaps time to call in some RCN/RCAF advisors...

And it would also be nice if some capabilities could be lean enough to deploy with light forces & SOF... you know, in case anyone fires rockets et al. at their camp?
The AD became "unequipped" (except for their ASCC components) around 2005/6 around the same time that the RCA ejected the M109s. The PYs were phased over to radars and UAVs as part of the rediscovery that artillery surveillance and target acquisition resources (which had previously died out except for a dozen folks at the School of Artillery) was needed when people shot mortars and rockets at you. M777s replaced the M109s in much smaller numbers. Res AD units reverted to Fd arty. 4 AD Regt converted to general support and gradually changed over to medium radars and tactical UAVs while keeping the ASCCs.

There are still some Air Defenders in the system who could be scraped together to form a core of skills. And of course 4 AD Regt's ASCCs offer some key command and control elements.

The artillery has struggled, just as the army as a whole has, with PY limitations and lost skills as resource allocations change. I think we have been particularly bad at keeping equipment and skills alive by refusing to transfer capabilities to the reserves. Most often this is because the few reg f PYs needed to provide ongoing leadership and expertise to the reserves and the few dollars needed to maintain this older equipment is simply not made available. I know that attempts were made to save some of this equipment but they were rejected. The Army's mantra is that we simply cannot afford the costs of maintaining older equipment so -- divest, divest, divest. Unfortunately that means capabilities are lost and corporate knowledge dies out with the old veterans. We couldn't be stupider if we had a deliberate plan to be stupid.

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Which is why I advocate getting Manpads with lot's of training versions. Push it out to the Reserves, you need a crewcab, one NCO per detachment (say 5 personal per detachment) a TSM and Officer to command up to 3 detachments. They start learning the basics of the trade, from siting, camouflage, fieldcraft, supporting other elements. Once they got the basics down (borrow the SOP's from allied forces that have such toys), then integrate into the command structure using RCN and RCAF personal. If you do it right, it will become the "Fun,cool troop" who get to go on jaunts with infantry units, onboard the Kingstons and AOP's, set up to guard airports , infrastructure. Work with the RCAF in wargame to conduct simulated attacks on each other. Get sent overseas to work with allied AD networks.

You can start the above with minimal up front investment in equipment and PY's and will give the Reserves a mission once their 105's die with no replacement, which is highly likely. I agree with what you say we need FJAG, but the hard reality is that there will be little to no money spent on this and all we (Canada) do is talk and talk about it. At least this gives you the basic building blocks and people with some skills to add the more complicated layer to in the future if people finally wake up to the threat. Eventually these troops could be upgraded to something like this in a light armoured vehicle, along with dismountable units.
thales-uk-arms-factory-belfast-northern-ireland-britain-shutterstock-editorial-842827j.jpg
 
Colin -

I think the biggest issues are weapon system/platform agnostic. If you deploy MANPADS and forgo the idea of establishing a holistic IADS, your adversary will simply work around this leaving your forces with no net gains. IMO, at least.

I think back to the the operational functions (I apologize if these are no longer used) - Command, Sense, Act, Shield, Sustain. You are focused on Act/Shield (perhaps a learned officer type can help me out here) but have overlooked the importance of Command & Sense. I would argue that these two functions should be in place before anything else...
 
Currently our AD is at the same level as our forces were at at the beginning of WWII, the only effective AD we have is the leopard II ability to engage Attack Helicopters. Nothing in my idea precludes working on command and control, in fact I will argue that my idea will force the army to get off it's arse and actually do something for real and not more tokenism. Sorry but until I see some sort of ability to actually engage and destroy hostile flying devices, it's all a large circle jerk. I am sure there are people in the army that want to move this ahead, but it's all theoretical until you can reach out and kill something. The army has had ample time since ADATS to think about command and control of AD assets and clearly if your worried that we don't have that at the moment, then they have utterly failed at protecting their forces from real and evolving threats. Maybe we should frame AD as a means to protect and improve diversity and inclusion in the forces?

Sorry for the rant but I find our responses to this threat an utter failure of command and leadership, which is why I push bottom up solutions, because I seen more bottom up solutions work than top down.
 
Currently our AD is at the same level as our forces were at at the beginning of WWII, the only effective AD we have is the leopard II ability to engage Attack Helicopters. Nothing in my idea precludes working on command and control, in fact I will argue that my idea will force the army to get off it's arse and actually do something for real and not more tokenism. Sorry but until I see some sort of ability to actually engage and destroy hostile flying devices, it's all a large circle jerk. I am sure there are people in the army that want to move this ahead, but it's all theoretical until you can reach out and kill something. The army has had ample time since ADATS to think about command and control of AD assets and clearly if your worried that we don't have that at the moment, then they have utterly failed at protecting their forces from real and evolving threats. Maybe we should frame AD as a means to protect and improve diversity and inclusion in the forces?

Sorry for the rant but I find our responses to this threat an utter failure of command and leadership, which is why I push bottom up solutions, because I seen more bottom up solutions work than top down.
There is a real Revolution in Military Affairs happening, as we speak. Many traditional platforms, notwithstanding history, pundits, or futurists, are already obsolete.

The advances in weaponry, that we are aware/apprised of, are mind-boggling. Just in the last 12 months, when speaking of known weapons systems that are coming on-line, defy my comprehension of warfare. Imagine what the next 36 months will do.
 
There is a real Revolution in Military Affairs happening, as we speak. Many traditional platforms, notwithstanding history, pundits, or futurists, are already obsolete.

The advances in weaponry, that we are aware/apprised of, are mind-boggling. Just in the last 12 months, the weapons systems that are coming on-line, defy my comprehension of warfare. Imagine what the next 36 months will do.
I'm looking at you, CSC.
 
Colin -

I think the biggest issues are weapon system/platform agnostic. If you deploy MANPADS and forgo the idea of establishing a holistic IADS, your adversary will simply work around this leaving your forces with no net gains. IMO, at least.

I think back to the the operational functions (I apologize if these are no longer used) - Command, Sense, Act, Shield, Sustain. You are focused on Act/Shield (perhaps a learned officer type can help me out here) but have overlooked the importance of Command & Sense. I would argue that these two functions should be in place before anything else...
I agree with both of you. I think Colin is looking at this from a practical system & practical use perspective -- whereas you are perhaps looking at this from a larger IADS perspective?

However, in the practical & useful sense of the capability, I have to go with Colin on this one, big time. Otherwise we end up with the same capability that we did in Afghanistan where we bought into Iron Dome for the radar capability, but didn't bother to buy into the engagement capability. So we can sense incoming threats, but we just can't do anything about it... not entirely useless, but not entirely helpful either.

By acquiring a capable MANPAD system & pushing it to the reserve force - we do acquire a very useful and effective capability which would be an absolute game changer for our forces, for a minimal financial investment. Easily purchased, easily trained, easily deployable, and useful everywhere. I'd say it's a fantastic investment and idea.


For a larger and more capable IADS, such as that would be found in a coalition environment, the focus on proper C2 may be more appropriate, as that system would include layers of different radars and weapon systems all working together.

For a simple MANPAD system that could sense & engage hostile helicopters, drones, and low flying targets -- getting a good system, getting the troops trained on it and having the system absorbed into our capabilities -- would absolutely be a significant capability boost, without needing to overthink it.
 
There is a real Revolution in Military Affairs happening, as we speak. Many traditional platforms, notwithstanding history, pundits, or futurists, are already obsolete.

The advances in weaponry, that we are aware/apprised of, are mind-boggling. Just in the last 12 months, when speaking of known weapons systems that are coming on-line, defy my comprehension of warfare. Imagine what the next 36 months will do.
Problem is that you can paralyze yourself into inaction by waiting for the next big thing. Most of these ideas we saw in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict are not that new, but it did showcase how effective they can be. Much of the actual destruction was caused by artillery, which is another utter failure point of our High Command (It's a long list).
Armenia had a somewhat robust AD system in regards to actual systems, but did a terrible job at locating and using them. That sort of stuff comes down to training and practice. There are tons of lessons to be learned. Problem is people talk about (in a metaphoric sense) the university level stuff, while our forces aren't even at the Grade 1 level yet. You need to get started on basics before you can do advanced stuff.
I add that armed UAV 's in Syria wrecked havoc till properly manned AD systems were introduced.

The sad bit is that we had the technology and the desire to have a robust AD system, but we did what Canada does best......
 
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